CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — To support winners of MassTLC 5G Robotics Challenge sponsored by Verizon and Ericsson, Waypoint Robotics Inc. recently delivered a mobile manipulation platform to the 5G Lab at the Alley here. The challenge winners will use the mobile manipulation system, which includes Waypoint’s flagship Vector autonomous mobile industrial robot and its quick-swappable UR5 payload, to develop robotics solutions bolstered by 5G technology.
This first-of-its-kind challenge asks teams to create 5G-powered robotics technologies in three key areas: industrial automation, collaborative robotics (cobots), and warehouse automation. As part of the program, winners will be able to use the Vector mobile manipulation platform as needed. They will also have access to dedicated 5G networks at Verizon’s 5G laboratories in Cambridge and Waltham, Mass., as well as 5G training and mentorship from Verizon and Ericsson.
“We are excited to support the 5G Robotics Challenge winners who are working to accelerate robotics development with the advantages offered by 5G technology and mobile edge computing” said Jason Walker, CEO of Merrimack, N.H.-based Waypoint Robotics. “This is a great example of the thriving New England robotics community working together to push forward innovative technologies that will have real benefits for the workforce and the companies they work for.”
Participants in the 5G Robotics Challenge, sponsored by Verizon and Ericsson, can use Waypoint Robotics’ platform. Source: MassTLC
Winners of the 5G Challenge each received $30,000 in grant funding to create insights, develop new use cases, and conceive innovative products that will advance the robotics industry by leveraging the unique speed, bandwidth and latency benefits of Verizon’s 5G technology and Mobile Edge Compute.
The volume of ideas and creativity proposed during the submittal process underscores a thriving greater Boston robotics community, said MassTLC. Challenges like these with support from organizations like MassTLC, Verizon, and Ericsson help fuel this growth.
Waypoint Robotics said it will continue to contribute to the robotics community by offering advanced technology that is easy to use for both the industrial workforce and entrepreneurs alike who are putting real robots to work in the real world.
Autonomous mining haulage in Australia. Source: Wenco
TOKYO — Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. last week announced its vision for autonomous mining — an open, interoperable ecosystem of partners that integrate their systems alongside existing mine infrastructure.
Grounded in support for ISO standards and a drive to encourage new entrants into the mining industry, Hitachi Construction Machinery (HCM) said it is pioneering this approach to autonomy among global mining technology leaders. HCM has now publicly declared support for standards-based autonomy and is offering its technology to assist mining customers in integrating new vendors into their existing infrastructure. HCM’s support for open, interoperable autonomy is based on its philosophy for its partner-focused Solution Linkage platform.
“Open innovation is the guiding technological philosophy for Solution Linkage,” said Hideshi Fukumoto, vice president, executive officer, and chief technology officer at HCM. “Based on this philosophy, HCM is announcing its commitment to championing the customer enablement of autonomous mining through an open, interoperable ecosystem of partner solutions.”
“We believe this open approach provides customers the greatest flexibility and control for integrating new autonomous solutions into their existing operations while reducing associated risks and costs of alternative approaches.,” he said.
The HCM Group is developing this open autonomy approach under the Solution Linkage initiative, a platform already available to HCM’s customers in the construction industry now being made available to mining customers with support from HCM subsidiary Wenco International Mining Systems (Wenco).
Three development principles for Wenco, Hitachi
Solution Linkage is a standards-based platform grounded on three principles: open innovation, interoperability, and a partner ecosystem.
In this context, “open innovation” means the HCM Group’s support for open standards to enable the creation of multi-vendor solutions that reduce costs and increase value for customers.
By designing solutions in compliance with ANSI/ISA-95 and ISO standards for autonomous interoperability, Solution Linkage avoids vendor lock-in and offers customers the freedom to choose technologies from preferred vendors independent of their fleet management system, HCM said. This approach future-proofs customer technology infrastructure, providing a phased approach for their incorporation of new technologies as they emerge, claimed the company.
This approach also benefits autonomy vendors who are new to mining, since they will be able to leverage a HCM’s technology and experience in meeting the requirements of mining customers.
The HCM Group’s key capability of interoperability creates simplified connectivity between systems to reduce operational silos, enabling end-to-end visibility and control across the mining value chain. HCM said that customers can use Solution Linkage to connect autonomous equipment from multiple vendors into existing fleet management and operations infrastructure.
The interoperability principle could also provide mines a systems-level understanding of their pit-to-port operation, providing access to more robust data analytics and process management. This capability would enable mine managers to make superior decisions based on operation-wide insight that deliver end-to-end optimization, said HCM.
Mining customers think about productivity and profitability throughout their entire operation, from geology to transportation — from pit to port. Source: Wenco
HCM’s said its partner ecosystem will allow customers and third-party partners to use its experience and open platform to successfully provide autonomous functionality and reduce the risk of technological adoption. This initiative is already working with a global mining leader to integrate non-mining OEM autonomous vehicles into their existing mining infrastructure.
Likewise, HCM is actively seeking customer and vendor partnerships to further extend the value of this open, interoperable platform. If autonomy vendors have already been selected by a customer and are struggling to integrate into the client’s existing fleet management system or mine operations, Hitachi may be able to help using the Solution Linkage platform.
The HCM Group will reveal further details of its approach to open autonomy and Solution Linkage in a presentation at the CIM 2019 Convention, running April 28 to May 1 at the Palais de Congrès in Montreal, Canada. Fukumoto and other senior executives from Hitachi and Wenco will discuss this strategy and details of Hitachi’s plans for mining in several presentations throughout the event. The schedule of Hitachi-related events is as follows:
Sunday, April 28, 4:30 PM — A welcome speech at the event’s Opening Ceremonies by Wenco Board Member and HCM Executive Officer David Harvey;
Monday, April 29, 10:00 AM — An Innovation Stage presentation on the Solution Linkage vision for open autonomy by Wenco Board Member and HCM Vice President and Executive Officer, CTO Hideshi Fukumoto;
Monday, April 29, 12:00 PM — Case Study: Accelerating Business Decisions and Mine Performance Through Operational Data Analysis at an Australian Coal Operation technical breakout presentation by Wenco Executive Vice-President of Corporate Strategy Eric Winsborrow;
Monday, April 29, 2:00 PM — Toward an Open Standard in Autonomous Control System Interfaces: Current Issues and Best Practices technical breakout presentation by Wenco Director of Technology Martin Politick;
Tuesday, April 30, 10:00 AM — An Innovation Stage presentation on Hitachi’s vision for data and IoT in mining by Wenco Executive Vice-President of Corporate Strategy Eric Winsborrow;
Wednesday, May 1, 4:00 PM — A concluding speech at the event’s closing luncheon by Wenco Board Member and HCM General Manager of Solution Business Center Yoshinori Furuno.
These presentations further detail the ongoing work of HCM and support the core message about open, interoperable, partner ecosystems.
To learn more about the HCM announcement in support of open and interoperable mining autonomy, Solution Linkage, or other HCM’s solutions, please contact Hitachi Construction Machinery.
Agriculture is a $5 trillion industry, and it’s ripe for automation. Cambridge Consultants today announced Mamut, an autonomous robot that explores crop fields, capturing data on health and yield at the level of individual plants and on a massive scale. By automating data capture, Mamut gives growers regular, precise and actionable information on their crops, enabling them to predict and optimize yields.
Agriculture is under pressure to increase efficiencies, producing greater yields with fewer inputs and less labor. To meet these demands, growers need precise information on crop growth and health throughout the growing season. Automation of the data collection process is essential to providing growers with information at scale.
Existing large-scale monitoring approaches use drones, which cannot capture information from beneath the crop canopy. Attempts to use ground-based monitoring have been limited by the requirement for additional infrastructure, such as cabling or radio beacons.
Mamut is an AI-powered autonomous robotic platform. Equipped with an array of sensors, Mamut maps and navigates its surroundings without the need for GPS or fixed radio infrastructure. As it travels the rows of a field, orchard or vineyard, cameras capture detailed crop data at the plant level, enabling accurate predictions of yield and crop health.
Mamut integrates stereo cameras, LIDAR, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a compass, wheel odometers and an on-board AI system that fuses the multiple sensor data inputs. This sophisticated blend of technologies enables Mamut to know where it is and how to navigate through a new environment, in real time.
“Mamut is a practical application of AI, meeting a real and pressing need, particularly for growers of specialty crops where failure carries a high cost,” said Niall Mottram, Head of Agritech, Cambridge Consultants. “AI systems are already being used to understand crop conditions, yield predictions and to enable weed identification, but our autonomous robotic platform can collect valuable and granular data below the canopy, where drones cannot see.
“This data enables farmers to treat each plant in their vineyard, orchard or field individually, and on the scale of massive industrial farming, optimizing yields and producing more output with less input.”
Mamut’s capability to perform simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), enabling the robot to react and learn from unstructured routes in real time, was developed in navigation trials through the twists and turns of a 12-acre maize maze at Skylark Garden Centre, and at Mackleapple’s orchard, both in Cambridgeshire, UK.
The Robot Report named Augean Robotics one of its 10 robotics startups to watch in 2019. Augean Robotics makes Burro, an autonomous mobile robot that follows people on a farm, moving up to 500 lbs of cargo around to free up workers to perform more valuable tasks. Burro can learn the routes it takes and re-run them autonomously. Augean is currently working with fresh fruit farmers. In December 2018, Augean took home top honors at the FBNFarmers Startup Competition by winning the Judge’s Choice Award.
What makes a robotics cluster successful? Proximity to university research and talent, government support of entrepreneurship, and a focus on industry end users are all important. Around the world, regions have proclaimed initiatives to become “the next Silicon Valley.” However, there have been relatively few metrics to describe robotics hubs — until now.
This week, Odense Robotics in Denmark released a report on the economic returns generated by its member companies. Both the amount of exports and the number of employees have increased by about 50 percent, according to Mikkel Christoffersen, business manager at Odense Robotics.
At the same time, the report is realistic about the ongoing challenges facing every robotics cluster, including finding qualified job candidates. As locales from India to Israel and Canada to China look to stimulate innovation, they should look at their own mixes of people, partnerships, and economic performance.
Membership and money
The Odense robotics cluster currently has 129 member companies and more than 10 research and educational institutions. That’s up from 85 in 2015 and comparable with Massachusetts, which is home to more than 150 robotics companies. The Massachusetts Robotics Cluster said it had 122 members as of 2016.
Silicon Valley Robotics says it has supported 325 robot startups, and “Roboburgh” in Pittsburgh includes more than 50 organizations..
In terms of economic performance, the Odense robotics cluster had 763 million euros ($866.3 million U.S.) in turnover, or revenue, in 2017. It expects another 20 percent increase by 2021.
Odense has been friendly to startups, with 64 founded since 2010. The Odense Robotics StartUp Hub has helped to launch 15 companies. Seventy companies, or 54 percent, of those in the Odense area have fewer than 10 employees.
Total investments in the Danish robotics cluster have risen from 322 million euros ($365.6 million) in 2015 to 750 million euros ($851.7 million) last year, with 42 percent coming from investors rather than public funding or loans.
Source: Odense Robotics
In addition, 71 local companies were robotics producers, up from 58 in 2017. The next largest category was integrators at 23. The region also boasted 509 million euros ($577.9 million) in exports in 2017, and 66 percent of its members expect to begin exports.
Market focus
The Odense Robotics report notes that a third of its member companies work with collaborative and mobile robots, representing its focus on manufacturing and supply chain customers. Those are both areas of especially rapid growth in the wider robotics ecosystem.
The global collaborative robotics market will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49.8 percent between 2016 and 2025, compared with a CAGR of 12.1 percent for industrial robots, predicts ABI Research. Demand from small and midsize enterprises will lead revenues to exceed $1.23 billion in 2025, said ABI.
Both Universal Robots and MiR have broadened their international reach, thanks to ownership by Teradyne Inc. in North Reading, Mass.
Robotics cluster must address talent shortage
Odense Robotics said that its robotics cluster employs 3,600 people today and expects that figure to rise to 4,900 by next year. In comparison, the Massachusetts robotics cluster employed about 4,700 people in 2016.
The Danish robotics cluster is a significant employer. Source: Odense Robotics
Even as the numbers of people grow at larger robotics companies (with 50 or more employees) or abroad, businesses in southern Denmark have to look far afield to meet their staffing needs. More than a third, or 39 percent, said they expect to hire from outside of Denmark, and 78 percent said that finding qualified recruits is the biggest barrier to growth.
The average age of employees in the Odense robotics cluster reflects experience, as well as difficulty recruiting. Fifty-five percent of them are age 40 to 60, while only 18 percent are under 30.
This reflects a larger problem for robotics developers and vendors. Even with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs and attention paid to education, the demand for hardware and software engineers worldwide outstrips the available pool.
The University of Southern Denmark (SDU) is working to address this. It has increased admissions for its bachelor’s degrees in engineering and science and master’s of science programs from 930 in 2015 to 1,235 last year. The university also launched a bachelor’s in engineering for robot systems, admitting 150 students since 2017.
The Danish Technological Institute is expanding its facilities in Odense this year. Source: DTI
Another positive development that other robotics clusters can learn from Odense is that 41 percent of workers at robotics firms there went to vocational schools rather than universities.
Partnerships and prospects
Close collaboration with research institutions, fellow robotics cluster members, and international companies has helped the Odense hub grow. Seventy eight percent of cluster members collaborate among themselves, according to the report. Also, 38 percent collaborate with more than 10 companies.
The Odense robotics cluster grew out of a partnership between shipping giant Maersk A/S and SDU. The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at SDU continues to conduct research into robotics, artificial intelligence, and systems for healthcare and the energy industry. It recently added aerial drones, soft robotics, and virtual reality to its portfolio.
Last year, the institute invested 13.4 million euros ($15.22 million) in an Industry 4.0 laboratory, and an SDU team won in the industrial robot category at the World Robot Summit Challenge in Japan.
Examples such as Universal Robots and MiR, as well as Denmark’s central position in Northern Europe, are encouraging companies to look for partners. Collaborating with companies inside and outside the Odense robotics cluster is a top priority of members, with 98 percent planning to make it a strategic focus in the next three years.
It’s only through collective action around robotics clusters that smart regions, large and small, can find their niches, build talent, and maximize the returns on their investments.
Editor’s note: A panel at the Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston on June 5 and 6, 2019, will feature speakers from different robotics clusters. Register now to attend.
Otto Motors, a division of Clearpath Robotics, introduced at IMTS its Otto Omega self-driving forklift. Otto Omega is designed to help those in materials handling reduce costs, increase throughput and improve safety in the warehouse. Otto Omega, according to Otto Motors co-founder and CEO Matt Rendall, can autonomously pick up and drop off skids, receive…
Brain Corp, an AI company specializing in the development of self-driving technology for robots, will lead a presentation on the specific steps required to move autonomous roboticss from the lab to live, real-world environments along with other relevant topics at the upcoming Robotics Summit & Showcase in Boston. Taking place May 23-24, 2018 and organized…
Chinese artificial intelligence and robot maker Geek+ (Beijing Geekplus Technology) will be demonstrating its line of picking, moving and sortation robots April 9-12 in Atlanta, GA at MODEX, the largest supply-chain trade show in the Americas. Geek+ is a leading provider — and China’s #1 supplier — of warehousing and logistics solutions in China and…
Robotics is undergoing fundamental change in three core areas: collaboration, autonomous mobility and increasing intelligence. Autonomous mobility technology is entering the industrial vehicle marketplace of AGVs, forklifts and tugs with new products, better navigation technologies and lower costs. Forecasters Grandview Research and IDTechEx suggest that autonomous forklifts and tugs will emerge as the standard from…
A pair of autonomous RadPiper robots developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute will help decommission a former US Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facility. The RadPiper robot can safely go where humans can’t and accurately measure radiation levels on the inside of pipes. The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, which shut down…
Today’s e-commerce spurs demand for reduced response times in fulfillment centers; generally has fewer products per order; and is constantly changing — increasing system complexity and the need for flexibility in automation. Today’s warehouses and distribution centers are far more complex than they were 10 years ago and employee turnover remains high; with complexity comes higher wages…
Mamut is an AI-powered autonomous robotic platform. Equipped with an array of sensors, Mamut maps and navigates its surroundings without the need for GPS or fixed radio infrastructure. As it travels the rows of a field, orchard or vineyard, cameras capture detailed crop data at the plant level, enabling accurate predictions of yield and crop health.
Keynotes
